What in the hell …

ΔM, that is. The difference between M’ and M. As in M-C-M’, the circuit which Marx identifies with capital (the circuit of money as capital).

The difference is surplus value, which is really what I’m on about. M-C-M’ is really M-C(mp+lp)…P…C’-M’ where mp=means of production and lp=labor power and …P… indicates production. Which is to say, the capitalist, our man Moneybags, makes an initial outlay for means of production (say, buildings and tools/machinery and raw materials) and for labor power (workers), which are then combined to produce a new product which is then sold for an amount greater than Moneybags’ outlay for mp and lp. The difference between the outlay and take home is the profit or surplus value (for now we’ll say profit and surplus value are the same; we’re also going to leave aside accumulation for now and just assume it happens normally).

Let’s say Moneybags spends $1000 and makes $1500. Let’s say annually. In that case the change in M is $500. Moneybags spends $500 on means of production and $500 on labor power (hiring ten workers for the year) and makes $500 over and above his costs. So far so good, right? All good and Marxly? (more…)

One of the two birthday gifts I brought to Uncle Karl’s (Great-Uncle, technically) birthday festivities was a small translation from Sandro Mezzadra’s book. In the translated passage, Mezzadra argues for placing forced labor more at the heart of our understanding of capitalism, and making “free” labor (waged labor) less central. (more…)

I’ve been racing the clock to finish this Sewell book before it’s due back to the library (curse you, unknown recaller!) but I may break down and buy it. One of Sewell’s goals is to show that the persistence of corporate idioms among the working class after the French revolution does not indicate a backwardness on the part of the class, no kind of vestigial holdover. Rather, the idiom on the workers’ differs on the part of the workers than on the part others, and it is re-articulated by the workers in new contexts. (more…)

I’ve just started the first long (and the longest) essay in the Philosophy of the Encounter, “Marx in his Limits.” (more…)

Pasted below is part two of my b-day celebration offering for Marx’s hundredsomethingth. (more…)

I found a reference to this book, Provincializing Europe, by Dipesh Chakrabarty, in one of the two passages from Mezzadra that I’m still finishing translating for the birthday gift to Marx. I dug the reference so I got the book out from the library. I’ve only just started it but I’m liking it. (more…)

I’m a nervous sort. Partly excess energy in need of burning off, I think. As part of this I sometimes get a little hung up on certain things that might go wrong. When I used to go housecalling w/ the organizer job I was always very nervous that I would step backward on the front porch steps right at the moment that the person opened the door. “Hi, I’m with - ” *CRASH* There would be no way that person would ever think of me as someone to trust, especially as in a conflict with their boss or landlord. This was not a big fear, just a nervous scenario that flashed through my head pretty regularly, and one which, view from a third person perspective with the right soundtrack would actually be kinda funny. (more…)

A reminder, via this quote posted at Mike’s in a post you should read in its entirety, why I like Harry Cleaver so much.

In Reading Capital Politically Cleaver contends that: “The alternative to ideological critique, whether of the political economy or the philosophical variety, is to begin from a strategic analysis of the pattern of development of working-class power as the only possible ground for answering the question of how that power can be increased. Such an analysis requires starting from an examination of workers’ actual struggles: their content, how they have developed, and where they are headed. By this I mean the struggles of the workers themselves, not of their “official” organizations (trade unions, parties, etc.). The actions of these organizations may accurately express the struggles of the workers themselves, or they may not. They are often completely at odds with them. It is because of this that we must begin with the unmediated struggles themselves. Since the class is not monolithic but is divided — capital rules by division — the examination of such struggles necessitates an analysis of the different sectors of the class and their interrelations, especially how the struggles of one sector are, or are not, circulating to other sectors. It is only through a circulation of struggles, in which those of various sectors of the class interlink to become complementary, that real unity against capital is achieved. Without such complementarity, “class consciousness” is only an ideological gloss; with it, “class consciousness” is superfluous. Therefore, it is essential for an assessment of present working-class power to clearly perceive both the divisions within the class — which must be understood as basically hierarchical divisions of power vis-a-vis capital — and the degree to which those divisions are being overcome. It is only within this framework that we can correctly situate the role of the “official” organizations of the class.” (2nd edition, p. 58)]